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I can barely hear him say, “I needed you.”
As he kisses my cheeks and picks me up, his face is bare; his face is tired or relaxed. I can’t decide if he looks lost or found.
We get into the bed together, shivering and wet. He
pulls the covers over us. The next thing I’m aware of is a sharp, gold light.
FIFTEEN
Barrett
I wait until she’s breathing evenly, then I quietly dress, grab my .338, and go downstairs, where dawn is streaming sheets of amber through the windows by the door.
I put the gun in its case early last night, after I first put Gwenna in my bed. I set the case on the kitchen counter and pull it out. I take my time looking over it, and when I’m finished, I step away from the counter and just stand there for a minute. It feels important somehow, though I can’t say why.
I leave the gun in the kitchen, but I can’t stop myself from going through the motions of clearing the house. When I’m finished, I carry the gun case over to the coat rack, where I get my Lakers cap and fold it into my back pocket. I get my helmet from a nearby cabinet and realize I haven’t left a note.
‘Going into town. Be back soon,’ I text Gwen. I’d like to add, ‘Make yourself at home,’ but how would she do that? I don’t even have real food here.
I look down at the gun case, waiting on the hardwood floor in front of the door. I could take it with me. Truthfully, I want to. Always. My McMillan .338 is the first gun I bought myself, way back before even the Rangers. Before it made sense for me to have a gun like this. It was my way of investing in myself, telling myself that I’d do it.
Looking at it now makes me feel strange. The plans I have for it…
I decide after a few minutes not to take it with me this morning. I stash it in the walk-in pantry, lying right along the baseboard, then arrange some empty cardboard boxes so they hide it from casual view.
I feel tense and restless as I pull my wrist brace on, then get on my bike and head toward town. As I drive down the winding, dew-damp road, through wooded foothills, underneath a fog blanket, I let my mind wander over last night. Most of it was surreal. Some of it makes me wish I never had to see her again. Makes me feel fucking terrible. I could go there… It would be easy.
But I also think about the moment I pushed into her. It felt so fucking good, like my whole body lit up. Everything went out of me, and light rushed in, and there was Gwenna, wiggling that ass against me, clamping that fat pussy down on my dick. I feel myself harden now and try to shift my thoughts away from her sweet body.
One thing I keep thinking about is her tucking that blanket around us. I’d woken up—sort of—and I was trying to breathe into that fucking pillow. Something about her pulling the blanket up…it just keeps replaying in my head.
I guess I thought she’d…
Most people wouldn’t want to be around that. Someone losing it. Why doesn’t she care?
I can feel her hand on my leg in the tub. The way her fingers brushed the back of my thigh. I couldn’t stand it the first time her fingertips slide over the bumpy scar. I got that graze the day I hurt my head. I’ve always hated it. I’ve always thought it should have been more.
I still think it should have been more. I know I should have died with Breck. I couldn’t shoot Maliha, even thought that was my goddamned job. That bomb blew up the square. She died, too. And then I end up over the edge of that building and I’m landing and so bright.
It was so bright and I heard Breck and everything was burning and… I look down at my left hand, strengthened by the fabric brace I have to wear to hold the handlebar.
You paid, I hear her voice say. I don’t even think she ever said that, but I still hear those words in her soft voice.
I feel warm and…weird. Like I can breathe a big gulp of the air. It smells like dirt and water. Feels like heaven in my lungs. I look down at my hand and I think I may love it: this fucked up hand.
If I’ve already atoned, maybe things could be different.
It’s a thought I don’t allow to linger.
I’m getting into town now, navigating little roads lined with storefronts that are somehow quaint and tacky all at once. I like it, though: Gatlinburg with its rock-lined streams squiggling through the city, with its ragged sidewalks, with its silly mini golf and faux chateaus and strip malls. And then the mountains rising up around it. They’re not really mountains. They don’t seem like mountains to me. But they’re still beautiful.
I stop at a gas station and fill my tank up. Not because I need it. Just because I like to have it. I go in to pay and look for breakfast. But…none of this looks good. I grab a bar of caffeinated chocolate, then I spend a minute looking at the Red Bull. I’ve got some at home. I could chug some now—in fact, I should—but…I don’t know. I just don’t want it. The taste. I’m fucking tired of drinking Red Bull.
I get a pack of white powder doughnuts, some beef jerky, and a bag of Cheese Its before wondering what Gwen would eat. I’ve seen a tube of Pringles in a grocery bag of hers before. I get some Pringles. While the short dude with a faux-hawk rings me up, I see these round rings by the register. Some are blue, others green, and one is brown.
“Mood rings,” the guy explains.
“What do they do?”
